The outlaw was left for several hours alone in the attic of the farmer’s house. He felt far from comfortable, and he experienced great mortification at the thought that he had been captured by a Quaker.
“I shall never hold up my head again—that is,” he added after a pause, “unless I circumvent him and get away.”
Fox dragged himself to the window and looked out.
“If only my brother knew where I was,” he reflected, “he would soon turn the tables on those clodhoppers.”
But, as he knew, his brother was twenty miles away on a different expedition.
John Fox was a man of expedients. In his long career as an outlaw he had more than once been “in a hole,” but he had never failed by some means to extricate himself.
It was not for some time that he bethought himself of a knife that he had in his pocket. If he could get it out he would be able to cut the ropes that bound him and escape, if he were not interfered with.
He looked out of the window again and saw Luke Robbins and the farmer walking up the road.
“They think I am safe,” soliloquized Fox, “but perhaps they may find themselves mistaken.”
He reflected with satisfaction that there was no one in the house but Mrs. Mason and himself. Yet as matters stood he was helpless even against her.